Late winter of 1998 and early spring of 1999 I was finally ready to begin breeding birds that would home into my loft. Peep was one of the first pairs of birds that were hatched out. As I said, this was before the wire-enclosed loft was completed, and this first pair hatched in the dirt where they were not protected from predators. The blessed event happened on March 16, 1999. Not long afterwards the nest was destroyed and a varmint ate one baby and the mother. This is when Joan and I brought "Peep" into the house for protection. We fed her homemade pigeon milk with a syringe. The formula was one that Joan made up, and it worked very well. She blended boiled eggs, vegetable oil, peas and several other ingredients that just seemed to make the tiny bird blossom!
In time, we took her back out to the now completed loft so that she would not home in in our home. She accepted the loft as home, but she had a special affinity for the two of us. Her father had a new bride by then, and he was busy starting a new family. We had borrowed Stassarts, a Mexican Janssen, a Huskin Van Riel, Grooter Stassart Osmonds, etc. In short, we had a variety of very well bred birds.
On April 22, 1999, "Miss Repeep" was hatched, and she was the half sister of "Peep"! " Peep's pop did not waste any time when his new bride arrived. "Miss Repeep" has proven to be one of my best performing birds, and she has produced some outstanding offspring. I still love her today just as much as I did when she was first hatched!
That first year was spent with nightly discussions on the telephone with my mentor, Gerry. He knew so much about birds, and I could not seem to absorb enough of his wisdom. It would seem very simple to raise pigeons and just let them do their thing. After all, we were dealing with instinct, and what could I personally do to improve upon the natural behavior of these "highly intelligent " birds. Sure, I could feed them properly and take care of parasites and mites and protect them from predators, but in the end, it would be their genetics that would show them the way. Right! If anyone could make mistakes raising and training pigeons, I think that I was far and away the leader of any pack under the sun!
One day a thunderstorm came up while no one was home, and the birds went out of the barn through the side door that was for my personal use. That night the birds stayed out in the trees near the barn. I called Gerry about the situation, and he informed me that that door was not their usual passageway, and they would not even consider going back into the barn through that door when roosting time came. I could not understand why not! I told him, "they are supposed to be intelligent, and they knew that they had left the barn through that door, so why in the hell did they not have enough sense to just go right back through the same door when it came time to roost"! Oh how exasperating the entire experience was becoming! I let them out one morning when it was about 15 degrees outside. I was on my way to work and as soon as I let them out, I saw that one bird was dangling from the branch of a pine tree. The bird had a string from a feed sack wound around its ankle, and it could not get loose. I leaned an extension ladder up against the tree, and climbed the ladder until I was on my tiptoes on the top rung. I looked down once and realized that if I fell off of that ladder, I would kill my damned fool self! I finally extended far enough out to grab the bird and pull it to safety. Damn this had really begun to be a fun sport, as I said much earlier, "I should have cut my losses and Quit", but hard headedness kept me hanging in there. I am very careful to not allow strings from feed sacks to just hang around anymore!
In the meantime "Peep's" father had become a real problem. He did not want to accept the 3-room loft as home, he wanted the whole damned barn! One night he kept everyone outside with him, and no matter how hard I tried, they would not come in. The very next day he became so unruly that I just plucked his head off! I recall Kohn Jones saying that I had probably killed my best bird, but I felt it was justified no matter how good he might have been!
The real fun began when I started training the birds with a training basket. The idea was to just start them out at a short distance from their home, release them from that point a couple of times, then double the distance. It is ideal to get them out 100 miles if possible in order to condition them for the racing season. Well, I would take ten birds out for the first time, and almost without exception, I would lose eight or nine of the ten that I had released! This was such a simple process, and to lose the birds at that stage was disappointing at the very least! Here I had spent so much time and money to get them to this point, and I would lose them regardless what I would do! Endless conversations with Gerry seemed to not improve the situation, and I was really beginning to think that either the birds or myself were "Ana Cephalic!
When the racing season finally arrived, I had only eight birds to show for the entire breeding season. There were "Peep", "Miss Repeep", a small red check Stassart, a Red Check Stassart Cock, two Silver Bar Stasart Cocks, a White Grizzle Mexican Janssen Cock, and a Dark Check Dalms Hen. Not a very impressive arsenal for all of the work that it entailed.
The first day of the season was a 100-mile race from Jacksonville, Arkansas, which is more or less 100 miles from all of our lofts. This was my very first race, and I was somewhat apprehensive about it because it was also the first day of Dove Hunting Season. All of the old fanciers simply dismissed Dove Season as nothing to be concerned about; they had all been through this thirty or forty times before. So, in spite of my concerns, I went along with the crowd. I was working that Saturday, so I was not home when the birds arrived. Joan clocked them in, as she always does, and only six of the eight birds returned. "Peep" and the little red check did not make it back. When I got home I waited around the loft until dark, but no sign of the two birds. The little red check did not surprise me, as she had gotten lost for a day or two every time the birds went out on a training flight. It was obvious that she would be culled sooner or later anyway, but "Peep" had always been so dependable! Every morning for the next few days I checked to see if either of them had returned, but no luck.
Then next Friday night I took my remaining six birds to be countermarked before the Saturday morning 150-mile race. It was my first opportunity to speak with the hauler about the preceding Saturday morning release. He confirmed my fear when he acknowledged that he heard two gunshots shortly after he released the birds. I, of course, have no proof, but I will always believe that "Peep" and the little red check met their fate that morning as a dove hunter shot them down. If this is indeed what happened, I hope the SOB is really proud of himself for bagging a couple of homing pigeons on the opening day of dove season!
We flew 200, 250, and 300 miles before that young bird season was over, and I wound up with four birds when all was said and done! The unfortunate thing was that I accumulated enough points to place third in the club that first year, and I could not wait to start the process all over again! I bred some more birds in September of that year so that I would have enough to prepare for the year 2000. I lost more than my share of these birds also as the trend continued.
The year 2000 was quite different as I began to learn more about training the birds as they became old enough to fly. I did not lose nearly as many birds as I did the first year, and things started to get a little clearer to me. I did not need to rely on Gerry as much as I did in the past, and I guess as I relaxed, the birds began to learn more quickly.
Breeding went along at a rapid pace this particular year, and I accumulated quite a few more birds than I did the first year. I did not lose as many to human error as I did to the Hawk problem that every area of this country seems to have. One of "Miss Repeep's" babies was loft flying one bright sunny morning, and a hawk hit her and down she went. I yelled at the hawk, and it dropped the bird in the woods very close to where I was standing. I went over to area as quickly as I could get there. I picked the bird up and said; "this is not so bad!" The next moment the bird was dead. The hawk had struck very strategically in the heart and in the gut, and the bird bled to death before I knew what had happened!
I had one small "Grey Grizzle Cock" that was hatched out as a single child as a Mexican Janssen Hen and a Silver Bar Stassart Cock mated late in the year 2000. This small cock that I later named "Stubby" became my favorite bird story of all times! "Stubby" was hatched out on June 17,2000. He was a late hatch, and I had already trained my fly team for the year. However, I wanted him to fly that year, so I managed to get him trained in time to fly with the big boys, and though he only clocked one time he placed fifth on the 250 mile race. On that particular race "lalofts" took the first five spots with times ranging from 1297.436 ypm down to "Stubby's" time of 1281.013 ypm. "lalofts" took high point loft for the year 2000 and high point bird as well. WOW, what a turn around!
The year 2001 started out with various breeding problems and an influx of new birds that required breeding to restart, and then restart again! "lalofts" again took third place, while not bad, was somewhat disappointing because of higher expectations. As for next year; I don't know if I will even be here!
Sometime in the spring, probably early June, I developed a terrible cough that would not go away. I, like all foolish pharmacists, treated myself. I did so with different antibiotics on a monthly basis for four months, and as of this date, the cough is worse than ever. I finally went to a doctor after the four-month period, and he thought it was allergic bronchitis. He gave me some sample inhalers and Singulair and told me to treat it for two months with those medications. A week later he was dead, and I needed to find another doctor. I did so, and he sent my blood off to test for every exotic disease under the sun. This process took another month, and all of the tests came back negative. Last week he did a CT scan of my chest and my abdomen and some pulmonary function studies. He said that the CT scans were normal, but the pulmonary function studies suggest that I have COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease). That was hard for me to believe since I have never so much as smoked a cigarette in my life! He called me at work Friday to tell me that the radiologist had changed his mind about the chest scan and there was something going on in the interstitial fluid. I am now to see a Pulmonologist to have a Bronchoscopy. So hopefully, I will find out what has caused this rapid deterioration in my lung function, and hopefully some of the lung function can be restored. However, as I write this final paragraph all I can say is "I Don't Know!"
I have thoroughly enjoyed writing the content of this website. I have found it to be a truly cathartic experience, and I would recommend this exercise to anyone who is contemplating leaving a written legacy behind for future generations. This should give some insight into your life for your children and grandchildren to enjoy.
I hope that you have enjoyed living my life over with me through the content of the preceding pages. I appreciate any comments or suggestions that you might have when signing my guest book when you have finished.
Thank you for visiting my site!
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